Heat Stress and Goat Welfare: Adaptation and Production Considerations

This review attempted to collate and synthesize information on goat welfare and production constraints during heat stress exposure. Among the farm animals, goats arguably are considered the best-suited animals to survive in tropical climates. Heat stress was found to negatively influence growth, milk and meat production and compromised the immune response, thereby significantly reducing goats’ welfare under extensive conditions and transportation. Although considered extremely adapted to tropical climates, their production can be compromised to cope with heat stress. Therefore, information on goat adaptation and production performance during heat exposure could help assess their welfare. Such information would be valuable as the farming communities are often struggling in their efforts to assess animal welfare, especially in tropical regions. Broadly three aspects must be considered to ensure appropriate welfare in goats, and these include (i) housing and environment; (ii) breeding and genetics and (iii) handling and transport. Apart from these, there are a few other negative welfare factors in goat rearing, which differ across the production system being followed. Such negative practices are predominant in extensive systems and include nutritional stress, limited supply of good quality water, climatic extremes, parasitic infestation and lameness, culminating in low production, reproduction and high mortality rates. Broadly two types of methodologies are available to assess welfare in goats in these systems: (i) animal-based measures include behavioral measurements, health and production records and disease symptoms; (ii) resources based and management-based measures include stocking density, manpower, housing conditions and health plans. Goat welfare could be assessed based on several indicators covering behavioral, physical, physiological and productive responses. The important indicators of goat welfare include agonistic behavior, vocalization, skin temperature, body condition score (BCS), hair coat conditions, rectal temperature, respiration rate, heart rate, sweating, reduced growth, reduced milk production and reduced reproductive efficiency. There are also different approaches available by which the welfare of goats could be assessed, such as naturalistic, functional and subjective approaches. Thus, assessing welfare in goats at every production stage is a prerequisite for ensuring appropriate production in this all-important species to guarantee optimum returns to the marginal and subsistence farmers

Not Available

Not AvailableA study was carried out to evaluate the effect of heat stress on carcass traits and expression of Myostatin,Heat Shock Protein (HSP) 70and HSP110expression in skeletal muscle of Kanni Aadu goat. Twelve female (one year old) Kanni Aadu goats were randomly allocated into two groups of six animals each, control (KC) goats were placed in the thermo neutral zone (TNZ), i.e., control chamber, while the heat stress (KHS) goats were exposed to heat stress in hot chamber (40°C) for 45 days. Major carcass traits remained intact between the groups. Physico-chemical characteristics revealed a significantly (p<0.01) higher pH values, higher drip loss, cooking loss, lower water holding capacity and lower sarcoplasmic protein in Longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL)and muscle in KHS group as compared to the KC group. Heat stress significantly (p<0.05) increased Lightness (L*), decreased tenderness (higher shear and low tenderness score), whereas no significant effect could be observed in myoglobin, met-myoglobin and other organoleptic characteristics. The HSP110 and myostatinm RNA expression was significantly (p<0.01) higher in KHS as compared to KC group. Results of our study indicated that Kanni Aadu breed may be considered an extremely adapted breed with high climate resilience capacity as reflected by the intact meat production characteristicsNot Availabl